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Just over one year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the official approval as F1's most recent participant for the 2026 season. Constructing the team from the ground up has involved a frenetic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As the sport arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.

The Countdown to Australia

At the last event of the campaign to be staged in the US, with just over 100 days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are aware there will never be sufficient time.

The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic team in the spring of 2023 soon after it was created, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core ever since and has a amused expression when thinking about the journey.

“You can have five minutes thinking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he says. “Then the very next instant you realize: ‘Well, there is still a great deal to do.’”

An Unprecedented Task

Nick Chester achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical development at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the challenge of launching the iconic American Cadillac marque, a factory team supported by the corporate entity, General Motors, into Formula One.

“Creating an F1 team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you don’t get the possibility to change team culture.”

With each passing day that passes thoughts are sharper on the approaching decisive point in Australia and targets are being managed.

“It's reasonable to expect that any new team coming in is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon commented earlier this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he felt the organization had a statement to make as well.

“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he says. “So that we show up and we perform competently. We want to show that we are a serious contender performing the right things on the track. After we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate improvement subsequently.”

Pilot Selection and Recruitment Drive

In the summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a pair notable for their priceless expertise in performing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Bottas reflected the mood of determined optimism.

“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We have a mountain of work to do, and we expect probably a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I believe with this setup, with this group, these personnel, there’s no reason why we won't be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”

To that end recruitment has been in overdrive, with employees now up to more than 400 and planned to reach the objective of 600 members quickly. Alongside their existing facility at the UK base, the squad are in the midst of building an headquarters at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the center to produce the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organisation, contrary to the movement in F1 for greater centralisation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO alluded.

Space Mission Blueprint

“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” stated the team principal ahead of the British GP in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how difficult it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”

So they have adopted, rather than the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all tackling various components of the project across a different facilities.

“When you must follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they report it to their team leader, that manager communicates with a leader in another department, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” notes Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to really get on with it. Avoiding managerial sign-off for each action is so much cleaner and faster.”

What Lies Ahead

The efficacy of this nimble strategy will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a considerable amount on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have taken on as their reserve driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta